Cross That Bridge
by Clowns or Midgets
Summary: Set at the end of Southern Comfort. Sam reveals the real reason he didn't search for Dean while he was in Purgatory. LIMP!SAM PROTECTIVE!DEAN


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. No copyright infringement intended.

**This story carries a trigger warning for cancer. **

**Thanks go to SnarkyMuch2 for beta'ing this.**

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**Cross That Bridge**

Sam throws his bags into the trunk of the Impala and slams it closed. His head is starting to ache, and he knows that's not a good sign. Dean turns back to look at him and scowls. A blinding pain crosses Sam's temple, and he wavers on his feet. He can feel the rage building, and though he knows it's not appropriate to the situation, he embraces it. He is going to use it to finally say what needs to be said.

"For the record, the girl – her name's Amelia. Amelia Richardson," he said. "She and I had a place together in Kermit, Texas.

Dean looks awkward. "Look, man, I don't even remember what I said, but, uh –"

"But what? But you didn't mean it? Oh, please. You and I both know you didn't need that penny to say those things." The anger is rising within Sam, and he tries to control it before he finds himself revealing too much.

"Come on, Sam," Dean says.

"Own up to your crap, Dean. I told you from the jump where I was coming from, why I didn't look for you. But you? You had secrets. You had Benny. And you got on your high and mighty, and you've been kicking me ever since you got back. But that's over. So move on, or I will. I haven't got time for this anymore."

Sam curses inwardly. He has said too much.

"You haven't got time for this?" Dean questions. "Since when do you not have time for me? Or is this a part of the new Sam, no time for his family now he's got a girl?"

Sam runs a hand through his hair in frustration. His head is pounding now, and he knows he needs to take something before it spirals out of control and he's back to lying in the dark for days. It's been a while since he's had one this bad.

"Well, come on, out with it," Dean prompts. "Is it the girl? Am I some big inconvenience now, back from Purgatory, getting in the way of your nice _normal_ life?"

Sam unlocks the trunk and grabs his duffel. Turning his back on his brother, he unlocks the motel room door and steps inside, throwing it closed behind him.

"Dammit, Sam!" Dean bellows and rattles the closed door. "Let me in or so help me…"

"Or what?" Sam mutters, like there is anything else Dean can do or say that can be worse than what he already knows. He let his brother down. He should have found a way to release Dean from Purgatory instead of lying around for days at a time. And Castiel too. What Sam wouldn't give to have Castiel here now with his healing abilities.

"Open this damn door!" Dean orders, slamming his fist against the wood.

Sam's head pounds in rhythm with the banging, sending scorching pain through his skull. He tosses his duffel on the bed and roots through it, searching for the small trove of medication he has stashed inside a pair of balled up socks. He selects the right bottle and shakes two pills out into his hands. He would like to take more, to stave off the pain faster, but he has learned his lesson in that respect. Having your stomach pumped for an overdose is not a pleasant experience.

"Sam, I'm coming in!" Dean bellows, stepping back and preparing to kick down the door. "One… Two…"

Before he reaches three, the door clicks open and his brother is illuminated by the motel room lamp.

Dean pushes past him and into the room. "Right, now you've finished hiding like a little bitch, we are going to talk about this once and for all," he says fiercely.

"Dean," Sam says in a whisper, fighting the urge to press his fingers against his temples. "Can't we do this another time?"

"Hell no we can't. We are doing this now!" Dean's anger towards his brother is growing by the second.

Sam sinks down onto the edge of the bed and clasps his hands between his knees. It is taking everything he has not to moan aloud, and for once, he doesn't care that his brother is mad at him. All he cares about is the crippling pain building in his head. He didn't get the meds in time; this is going to be a bad one. He glares balefully at the lamp in the corner, wishing he could turn it off.

"I do have time for you, Dean," he says in a tired voice. "But right now, I just want to sleep."

Dean snorts. "Sure, it sounds like you've got plenty of time for me, as long as you're not sleepy, or you know, I'm not rotting in Purgatory!"

Sam raises his head slowly to look at his brother. "Is that what you really think? That I didn't come look for you because I couldn't be bothered?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I think. You had some nice apple pie life with your girl, and I screwed it all up by coming back."

Tears spring to Sam's eyes. They are a combination of physical pain and emotional pain as he hears how low his brother opinion is of him. How had it all gone so wrong? How had they come to this?

Dean sees the tears but discounts them. Sam has no right to be upset. He was the one that caused this whole mess. He was the one that left Dean to rot in Purgatory. If anyone has a right to be upset, it's Dean.

"You're wrong," Sam says in a whisper. "You didn't screw it up by coming back. You coming back was the first thing that felt right in this whole disaster of a year."

"Doesn't seem like it to me. You honestly telling me you weren't happier without me."

Sam groans and fists a handful of hair. He can't help it. He is trying so hard to resist the pain, but it is coming at him full force. Dean takes this as a sign of weakness in his brother, and it irritates him.

Sam knows this is the time to finally come clean. If there ever is a right time for something like this. If he does not heal this breach between him and Dean now, it will never happen. He will lose his brother forever. Making a supreme effort to hide his agony, he reaches for his duffel.

"You running off again?" Dean says cruelly.

"No. That's what you are going to do," Sam says, knowing in his heart that is true. When Dean learns the truth, he is going to leave Sam behind. Soon, Sam won't be hunting, and the hunt is all Dean cares about these days.

"You're damn right I am," Dean says. "If I don't get some answers soon, I am going to pack up my shit and leave you to it. After all, that's what you want."

With trembling fingers, Sam unrolls the socks and allows the four medicine bottles to roll out onto the bedspread.

Dean watches them roll out, and cold fear grips his heart. "Sammy?" he whispers. "What are these?"

"Drugs," Sam says, avoiding his eye.

"I can see that," Dean says, still in that same quiet tone; it's almost childlike. "Why do you have them?"

Sam sighs heavily and braces his hands on his knees. With supreme effort, he forces himself to look into his brother's eyes. "I'm sick, Dean."

It feels like all the air has been sucked from the room. Dean wavers on his feet and his knees touch against the second bed. He allows himself to sink down onto the mattress as Sam's words reverberate around his mind. "I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick." But he can't be. It's Dean's job to look after Sam. How could he have missed this? He looks at his brother and sees the signs he has missed before. There are dark circles under Sam's eyes and his skin is pale. His forehead is creased, a sure sign of pain in Sam. How could Dean have missed all this for so long?

"What is it?" Dean asks in a hoarse whisper.

"Cancer," Sam says simply, and Dean's world implodes.

Sammy, his Sammy, his little brother had cancer. It wasn't possible. There had to have been some kind of mistake.

Sam sees the moment his words impact Dean's mind, and he knows the feeling well. He is sure Dean's expression mirrors the one he himself had been sporting the day he walked out of a doctor's office twelve months ago. It had been shortly after Dean and Castiel had disappeared. He was still deep in the depths of his grief, and nothing could have torn him from the search for his brother, not the fatigue, not the dizziness, not the crippling headaches, nothing except the seizure that gripped him in the middle of a busy diner, landing him in hospital. Things had moved fast after that. He had been diagnosed within a week and started treatment soon after.

That was then, this was now.

Dean's hands are shaking as he rolls the pill bottles in his hands. "What are these?" he asks. It's not the question he wants to ask, but he is unable to ask them without risking his mind. He already feels like he is one step away from shattering into a thousand pieces.

"Painkillers mostly," Sam says in a tone of forced calm. "Those ones there are antidepressants. Evidently, dying is a sad business and you need a little help getting through the days."

Dean's heart drops to his stomach. He is certain he misheard, as there is no way on this earth Sam could be dying. It just wasn't possible. Sure he had seen it happen before. He had held his brother in Cold Oak as the life seeped out of him, but that was different. That was then. They had paid their dues, both of them. They were supposed to be living on the flipside. Sure Purgatory had been a complication, but compared to this, it felt like a vacation in Hawaii. Dean would gladly spend a century in Purgatory if Sam would just take back the word that caused his heart to break.

"Dying?" he croaks.

Sam looks at him with sympathetic eyes and nods. "Yeah."

"When?"

Sam shrugs. "Who knows."

"Dammit, Sammy, tell me!" Dean demands.

Sam looks as if he would rather swallow a razorblade than answer the question, but dutiful brother that he is, he answers. "A couple of months, maybe."

"And there isn't anything they can do?"

Sam shakes his head. "I've done it all already." He turns his head and pulls back his hair, showing Dean the spot where the hair was shaved for treatment. "Radiotherapy," he says conversationally. "For nine months before they could tell it wasn't doing any good."

"But there has to be more," Dean says desperately. "Chemotherapy, drugs, surgery. They're doctors for crap's sake. Why aren't you in hospital now?"

Sam can't answer that. He can't tell his brother that he was in hospital, undergoing treatment, until a call came through on an old cell phone. A call that gave his life the first light it had seen in over a year. The call that said his brother was back.

"Sammy?"

"They've done all they can," Sam says simply. "Now is time to live."

Dean snorts. "Living? You call what we have been doing living?" Anger is now coming back to him, and he draws on it. Anything is better to feel than the crippling grief. "Dammit, Sam, when were you going to tell me about this? Or was I just going to wake up to find you dead in the bed next to me someday?"

"I was going to tell you, but I knew if I did it would mean this. I didn't want this. I didn't want to see _that_ look in your eyes. I was hoping we would get to the tablet and Kevin in time to close the gates of Hell once and for all. I wanted this time to mean something, for my life to be something other than that of the man that freed the devil."

Dean's heart sank. After all they had been through, after all Sam had done, he still couldn't forgive himself for that mistake. He had freed Lucifer, but he had also put him back in the cage.

"Don't look at me like that," Sam says. "I'm not looking for pity. I know what a fuck up I have been. It just feels like this is something I can finally do to make it right."

Dean wants to argue with him, but it was not six hours ago that he was throwing all Sam's mistakes in his face. How can he make up for that? How can Sam ever forgive him for what he said?

"Sam, I'm so—"

"Don't, Dean," Sam says abruptly. "I know you meant what you said, and you were right. I am a royal screw up, always have been. But if we can find Kevin and the tablet, I can make this right before I go."

"You think we're still going after Kevin?" Dean asks incredulously. "Sammy, you're sick. We've got to get you to a hospital. We need a second opinion. Dammit, a third opinion. I don't care what it takes. We're going to fix you."

Sam smiles at Dean. The smile makes Dean want to cry. It speaks of too much understanding. Sam has already been there and done that.

Sam pushes himself to his feet and paces the length of the room. "Okay, now you know. I didn't want you to find out like this. Truth is, I didn't want you to find out at all, but now you know. We need to talk about what happens next."

Dean's mind is already working far ahead of Sam's. Maybe medicine isn't the answer, maybe the supernatural is, a faith healer or another angel. There has to be some way to save his brother. A deal even.

"No deals!" Sam says firmly, and for a moment, Dean thinks Sam really read his mind. "No healers, no angels. We aren't going down that road again. It always comes back to bite us on the ass. We are going to let nature takes its course, and _you_ are going to let me finish what should have been finished all those years ago at Cold Oak."

"Sammy, no," Dean whimpers.

"Yes, Dean. We made a deal. No matter what happens to the other, we leave it alone. We don't go looking for trouble. You are going to keep that deal."

"You can't expect me to sit back and watch you die!" Dean growls.

"Of course, I don't," Sam says sympathetically. "You don't have to stay. I have time left. We can search for Kevin, maybe we'll find him. But when the time comes, I want to be alone."

"You can't seriously…"

"I can," Sam says firmly. "This is my choice to make. I don't want you to watch it happen, and if you are being honest with yourself, you know you don't want to watch it either. This way, we're both happy."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Happy? Sammy, do you honestly think anything about this can make me happy."

"Bad choice of words. What I mean is that this is the best solution for us both. We both get what we want."

"Dammit, Sammy, don't think cancer gets you out of an ass kicking."

Sam laughs, and it feels so good he allows it to buoy him up and take him from the situation for a moment. He knows he is becoming hysterical, but he can't help it. The laughter is so uplifting. He gives himself over to it completely until tears are streaming down his face.

It doesn't last. A warm hand cups his cheeks and raises his head so he is staring into Dean's eyes. Tears rain down Dean's face, and his eyes are filled with a desperate sadness.

"I'm sorry, Sammy. I'm so sorry." He is apologizing for so much, for the things he said, for the way he has treated Sam since he came back, for the fact his little brother has been damned by something Dean had no way of protecting him from.

Sam nods. "I know you are."

"I'm not leaving you," Dean says with certainty.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Sam says. "For now, let's just focus on closing the gates to Hell."


End file.
